OpenUCT :: Browsing by Department "Social Survey Unit"

Browsing by Department "Social Survey Unit"

Now showing 1 - 17 of 17

Open Access
The biometric imaginary : standardization & objectivity in post-apartheid welfare
(2013-12-22) Donovan, Kevin P.
Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This paper seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a study of the bureaucratic and policy elite’s motivation for this undertaking. It suggests that biometric technology was conceived of and implemented as the most recent in a series of institutional, infrastructural, and policy reforms that seek to deliver welfare in a standardized and objective manner. This technopolitical imaginary has contributed to both the strengths and weaknesses of today’s centralized welfare state.
Open Access
A brief history of predators, sheep farmers and government in the Western Cape, South Africa
(2017-03) Nattrass, Nicoli; Conradie, Beatrice; Drouilly, Marine; O'Riain, M. Justin
This paper provides a brief history of the conflict between South African sheep farmers and predators (and we touch also on the debate between diverse stakeholders over how best to respond to that conflict). We focus in particular on black-backed jackals and commercial sheep farmers in the Western Cape Karoo, drawing on historical sources, colonial records, early ecological thinking and observations by farmers to paint a picture of this dynamic conflict. The paper forms part of an inter-disciplinary project about sheep farming and predators in the Karoo
Open Access
Cape Town Clothing Workers’ Attitudes Towards Key Aspects of and Alternatives to Regulation by the Bargaining Council
(2016-05) Maraire, Wesley
The South African clothing industry has shed over 70 000 jobs in the last decade. This has given rise to huge debate about the role of the Bargaining Council and Minister of Labour in regulating wages and employment conditions. The Bargaining Council and Minister set minimum wages, differentiated by region, occupation and experience. However, they have not permitted full-scale productivity-related pay. The government has also moved to restrict cooperatives. The study set out to explore the attitudes of formal and informal clothing workers toward the wage-regulatory framework, and three alternatives to the current model of wage-regulation by the Bargaining Council and Minister: • Performance-based incentive pay • Home-based informal workshops • Worker co-operatives. Both formal and informal workers generally had a very poor understanding of the industry’s regulatory environment and required brief explanations. Attitudes to the alternatives varied between the two groups. All workers were generally against performance-based pay because they distrusted employers whom they thought would cheat them. Most formal workers regarded informal work as a viable alternative for retrenched workers although they themselves could not imagine working in informal workshops. Both sets of workers were positive towards worker co-operatives, which appear to have the advantage of changing the working relationship from manager and worker to one where the workers are owners. All workers demonstrated overall awareness of the pressures facing the clothing industry, such as those caused by cheap Chinese imports. The evidence in this study is not sufficient to arrive at a set of conclusions regarding alternatives to wage-regulation by the Bargaining Council and Minister. Instead, the findings reveal areas of further research and create a foundation to understand better the various dynamics in the industry.
Open Access
A comparison of the performance under field conditions of woolled and mutton sheep flocks in a low rainfall region of South Africa
(2013-12) Conradie, Beatrice; Landman, Abraham
This paper investigated the relative financial performance of woolled and mutton sheep and the determinants of woolled sheep ownership for 34 full-time sheep farms in Laingsburg South Africa, where rainfall is only 128 millimetres per annum. A comparison of fourteen woolled sheep flocks and eight similar sized mutton flocks revealed 1) a slightly but insignificantly higher unit production cost for wool producers, 2) a 21% but insignificantly higher net farm income per breeding ewe for woolled sheep, 3) a significantly lower tagging percentage for woolled sheep and 4) a significantly lower predation percentage for woolled sheep. The percentage of woolled sheep in the flock was a logit function of farm size, size of the irrigated (crop) area, tradition and terrain ruggedness, although the latter was not significant. Farmers in extensive grazing areas should take notice of woolled sheep’s ability to compete and the wool industry should pay attention to further improving the reproductive performance of this sheep type. The finding of woolled sheep’s apparent lower susceptibility to predators deserves further study as it could become a strong argument for why farmers ought to switch (back) to woolled sheep.
Open Access
A cost benefit analysis of a technology bundle aimed at improving the resilience of urban households in Rocklands, Mitchell's Plain
(2013-10) Odendaal, Rehana; Morar, Jeeten; Conradie, Beatrice
This paper documents and evaluates the early progress with a project which aims to increase the resilience of poor urban households with a complete technology package consisting of a permaculture food garden and multiple renewable-energy retrofits. The project is PBO facilitated and incorporates substantial training. Beneficiary households are objectively poor, but not destitute. After six months there were still some glitches with the retrofitting, but the gardens were all thriving and were yielding some produce and substantial pride for their owners. Retrofitting accounts for 39% of project costs, the gardens for 27%, and overheads (including training) for the remaining 34%. We have estimated the unit cost of expansion to be R6 435 for the basic model and R16 381 for an unsubsidised advanced model (in 2013 prices). This initiative has been expensive, perhaps unnecessarily so, but is also successful against great odds, not least of which is the exceptionally difficult growing conditions which characterise the Cape Flats. We identified appropriate support, flexible design and on-going monitoring as important issues going forward, but we nonetheless think that the project is one of the most successful of its kind and that it could be replicated on a larger scale at modest additional cost.
Open Access
A critical review of South Africa’s Carbon Tax Policy Paper: recommendations for the implementation of an Offset Mechanism
(2013-12) Newham, Melissa; Conradie, Beatrice
The South African government has emphasised the need for ‘developing country’ solutions to climate change that simultaneously pursue GHG reductions and socioeconomic development. To encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy the National Treasury has proposed a carbon tax and offset mechanism to be introduced in 2015. The practical delivery of the offset scheme remains uncertain. This paper investigates which features and governance structure would be desirable for such a mechanism in South Africa. Primary research is conducted into the South African voluntary carbon registry; Credible Carbon. The questions asked by this paper are: Should firms be allowed to offset emissions? What is the ideal way to implement offsets in South Africa? This paper concludes that Credible Carbon provides a good model for carbon trading that can be scaled up to meet demand under the new regulations. However, government needs to ensure that projects continue to deliver acceptable social benefits and that carbon auditors are well-trained and accountable.
Open Access
Infrastructuring aid : materializing social protection in Northern Kenya
(2013-12) Donovan, Kevin P.
In numerous African countries, humanitarian and development organizations—as well as governments—are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor households, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required to deploy social protection in one especially remote area: the margins of postcolonial Kenya. Specifically, it documents the often-overlooked social and technical construction of the infrastructure necessary so that cash transfers may function with the ease and simplicity for which they are commended. Attention to the practice of ‘infrastructuring’ offers insights into the tensions and politics of what is rapidly becoming a key form of transnational governance in the global south, especially the way in which market-based means and humanitarian ethics overlap.
Open Access
The Koup Fencing Project : community-led job creation in the Karoo
(2014-09-17) Nattrass, Nicoli; Conradie, Beatrice; Conradie, Inge
This paper discusses a community-led fencing project in the Koup, an arid predominantly sheep farming district in the South African Karoo. It highlights the role of supportive government officials in sourcing funding and the importance of committed individuals in overcoming collective action problems amongst participating farmers. The project had a strong empowerment dimension in that fencing team leaders were drawn from the ranks of unemployed people in Laingsburg town and they were responsible for recruitment into the project and for the day to day management of the work. Comparative analysis of the socio-economic position of the fence workers with data from the 2011 population census of coloured people living in Laingsburg town suggests that the fence workers were relatively poor and that the project was appropriately targeted for a poverty alleviation programme. This was in part because workers were required to camp on farms for two weeks at a time, thereby resulting in the project automatically selecting for those most committed to earning additional income. The study revealed that the fencing workers identified themselves as general agricultural workers but had skills and experience from other sectors including construction and services. Urban-based agricultural workers have lived in Laingsburg for at least three decades i.e. before the shift of workers off farms that took place across South Africa after 1990. The study sheds light on this long-standing, but under-studied dimension of urban poverty and on the diverse strategies (including reliance on government grants) that people use to combat it in the Karoo.
Open Access
Laingsburg Bestuursopname, Rondtes 1 en 2: Produksie en Winsgewendheid
(2015-08) Conradie, Beatrice
Ons beskik oor redelik betroubare bestuursinligting vir 48 produsente wat saam op ongeveer 50% van die landbougrond in Laingsburg se distrik boer. Die groep se gemiddelde speenpersentasie was net ‘n raps kort van 80% oor die afgelope twee jaar, maar wissel na gelang van boerderytipe. Die gemiddelde veebelading van 12.7 hektaar per groot skaap word ook deur boerderytipe bepaal. Dorpers is die hoof ras en die wolboere se vesel:vleis verhouding is die verwagte 40:60 verhouding. Daar was nie in een van die jare ‘n beduidende verskil in die winsgewindheid van die drie kommersiële skaapproduksiestelsels nie. Daar was egter wel ‘n verskil tussen die skaapboere se netto boerederyinkomste en die van die deeltydse/besproeiingsboere. In 2012 het die kommersiële boere gemiddeld R202 per skaap gemaak. Dit het in 2013 na R215 per skaap gestyg. Die deeltydse/besproeiingsboere het op dié basis in beide jare ‘n verlies gemaak, bloot omdat hulle ander bronne van inkomste nie in berekening gebring is nie.
Open Access
Minimum wage-setting by the Employment Conditions Commission in South Africa, 1999-2015
(2016-04) Seekings, Jeremy
The growing literature on the institutions that set minimum wages points to the importance of institutional design but lacks empirical studies of how and why institutions work in different ways. This paper examines the case of the Employment Conditions Commission (ECC) in South Africa between its establishment in 1999 and 2015. The ECC, comprising members nominated by organised business and labour together with government-appointed experts, set sectoral minima in low-wage sectors without strong collective bargaining. The ECC tended towards caution in setting and raising minima, for at least three reasons: concern over possible job destruction (in an economy with very high unemployment already), low baseline minima inherited from previous or other institutions, and the negotiating styles of labour and business representatives. The ECC raised sectoral minima steadily in real terms, in some cases more than doubling over about a decade. On only one occasion, under intense political pressure from the government, did the ECC recommend a major real increase. Lacking independent research capacity and hence good evidence on the size of employment effects, the ECC was vulnerable to political pressure (from the government) or criticisms (from trade unions, from 2012 onwards).
Open Access
Productivity benchmarking of free-range sheep operations : technical efficiency, correlates of productivity and dominant technology variants for Laingsburg, South Africa
(2014-08-05) Conradie, Beatrice; Piesse, Jenifer
Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to benchmark extensive sheep operations in Laingsburg in the Central Karoo, South Africa, with data from the 2012 production season. An input oriented variable returns to scale frontier identified twelve efficient firms, and nine more that are technically efficient but not scale efficient. The top third’s overall efficiency score was 0.999. For the bottom third the average efficiency score was just 0.346, which indicates that there is substantial room for improvement amongst bottom third producers in this production system. Overall efficiency was correlated with stocking density, flock size, unit production cost and profitability, cumulative family experience of farming and the use of family labour, but not with farm size, breed choice or any proxy for individual experience or ability. Predation rates in particular were uncorrelated with productivity scores and reproductive performance was only weakly correlated with it. While most farms could theoretically improve their efficiency by intensifying their operations, a closer analysis of best practice firms revealed a spectrum of optimal intensities including the possibility of restoring rangelands by deliberate understocking. Grazing strategy and the degree of labour self-sufficiency emerged as the key determinants of optimal intensity.
Restricted
Relieving consumer over-indebtedness: The need for a ‘fresh start’ in South Africa
(2016-01) Ssebagala, Ralph
Although the relative risks of consumer over-indebtedness can be identified, and to some extent prevented, the occurrence of unfortunate events beyond the market’s control means that some consumers will find themselves financially over-extended and suddenly incapable of paying their debts. Modern credit societies have noted this, and devised legal measures to relieve such consumers of their debt distress by discharging them of their problematic debts in order to offer them an opportunity to reclaim their financial health (the fresh start). In a context like South Africa, where households are not only highly leveraged but also highly exposed to idiosyncratic risk yet inadequately insured, such measures have never been more relevant. However, the available measures are not up to the challenge of providing meaning relief and rehabilitation of consumers. This paper attempts to show why, and proposes the implementation a simple, straightforward mechanism for debt discharge akin to the ‘fresh start’.
Open Access
A study of group dynamics in the South African dairy industry: A sequential Malmquist approach
(2015-08) van Niekerk, Hugh; Conradie, Beatrice; Piesse, Jenifer
This study presents a sequential Malmquist index for twenty members of an Eastern Cape dairy study group for the period 2010 to 2013. On average these farms were at efficiency levels of 95% and more during this period. The group’s mean technical progress was 11% per year. This resulted in productivity growth of almost 14% per year. However, these estimates are probably inflated as they were obtained with the combination of a small dataset and a large model. The group is a success because it transfers knowledge and enables innovation. We found weak support for the belief that it is beneficial to operate mixed breed herds and showed that less intensively managed or smaller herds did better than larger herds or herds managed for the maximum amount of milk per cow. Productivity growth was positively correlated with various proxies for knowledge. It increased with self-sufficiency in hay production and expenditure on concentrates, and was inversely related to the unit hay cost. Rainfall was positively correlated with self-sufficiency but not with unit hay cost or productivity. To conclude: study groups could a useful tool for driving innovation in any industry. Innovation can happen quickly but is complex, and therefore it helps to have a single metric of progress. Good data are needed to develop accurate measures of innovation, but if available could be the difference between noting a potential disaster in time and failing altogether.
Open Access
Total factor productivity of urban agriculture on the urban periphery of Cape Town
(2015) Dyer, Martin; Mills, Richard; Conradie, Beatrice; Piesse, Jenifer
This paper investigates the efficiency relationships between inputs and outputs of urban micro-farms in two of Cape Town’s townships: Nyanga and Khayelitsha. The inputs in this study were land, labour, seeds and seedlings, compost and farmer experience. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied to 33 producers supplying a social enterprise box scheme, thereby generating individual efficiency measures relative to best practice. The DEA results revealed an average level of overall, technical and scale efficiency of 72.4%, 79.7% and 90.6% respectively. Overall efficiency was negatively correlated with land holdings and the use of compost and seedlings. This is supported by the finding that the nine best-practice farms were characterised by a smaller scale of production, indicating that efficiency losses are experienced as greater quantities of inputs are used. In terms of area differences, Nyanga farms exhibit significantly higher technical efficiency, whereas farms in Khayelitsha are more scale efficient. Standardised input and output data show both the expenditure on compost and seed to be profitable, but we failed to show that mulching or operator experience increases profitability. Fully efficient farms are R2,600 per plot more profitable than inefficient farms while farms that need a windbreak earn R700 less per plot per season than more sheltered operations. These results are the first of their kind for South Africa and lay the foundation for more effective extension to the sector.
Open Access
Trade unions and the redesign of South Africa’s minimum wage-setting institutions in the 1990s
(2016-04) Seekings, Jeremy
South African trade unions’ criticisms in the 2010s of the institutional framework for minimum-wage-setting mark a dramatic departure from the central role they played in the design of these institutions in the 1990s. The four key features of the institutional framework – i.e. the emphasis on sectoral rather than national wage-setting, the primacy attached to collective bargaining, the role of technocrats in wage-setting in sectors where there was insufficient worker or employer organisation for effective collective bargaining, and the stipulation that employment effects be taken into account in setting minima in unorganised sectors – all reflected concerns raised by trade unions themselves. The trade unions’ approach in the 1990s reflected their own sectoral organisational form, their strong shopfloor organisation and distrust of the state, and anxieties about job destruction (especially in unions in labour-intensive sectors and among allied intellectuals).
Open Access
Understanding the black-backed jackal
(2017-03) Nattrass, Nicoli; Conradie, Beatrice; Drouilly, Marine; O'Riain, M Justin
This paper reviews what we know about black-backed jackal ecology, drawing implications for managing human-wildlife conflict with this species. We review the research literature on the black-backed jackals in the context of other African jackal species and with regard to its diet (part 1), its breeding, territoriality and sociality (part 2), and its role as a ‘problem animal’ for small stock farmers (part 3). We argue that both the historical record (see also Nattrass et al., 2017) and the scientific research points to the need to understand the black-backed jackal as a very adaptable animal whose diet, breeding strategies and social arrangements are context-dependent. We draw implications for the management of black-backed jackal predation (part 4) and need for further research, especially on farmlands and landscapes undergoing a transformation in land use. The paper is part of an inter-disciplinary project about sheep farming and predators in the Karoo.
Open Access
What matters more for South African households’ debt repayment difficulties?
(2016-01) Ssebagala, Ralph
While the increased access to consumer credit has helped many families improve their welfare, the rising repayment burdens upon a background of chronically law savings rate have generated concerns that South African families are becoming ever more financially fragile and less able to meet their consumer debt repayment obligations. Using data from the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), this paper investigates whether consumer debt repayment problems are better explained by excessive spending which leaves households financial overstretched or by negative income shocks. The results indicate that households are significantly more likely to be delinquent on their financial obligations when they suffer negative events beyond their control rather than due to the size of the expenditure burden. This suggests that some consumers will experience repayment problems even when they borrow within their means. Thus regulatory efforts to improve mechanisms for debt relief might be more meaningful than restrictions on lending.

Browsing by Department "Social Survey Unit"

Results Per Page

Sort Options